Tag Archives: Elvis Presley

Click for a gallery of The Tennessean's photos of Elvis Presley over the years (this photo: Eldred Reaney/The Tennessean)

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Television and radio personality Wink Martindale remembers the day nearly 60 years ago when Elvis Presley's first single, "That's All Right," played for the first time on the radio.

It was July 8, 1954, and a fresh-faced Martindale was working as a disc jockey at WHBQ in Memphis. He was at the studio when legendary producer Sam Phillips brought by an acetate copy of the song Presley cut at Phillips' Sun Records.

DJ Dewey Phillips - no relation to Sam - played the song on his influential "Red, Hot and Blue" radio show, and rock n' roll history was made.

Many touring Christmas shows are stopping in Middle Tennessee this holiday season, but Marie Osmond says the opportunity to see her and brother Donny Osmond’s Christmas in Nashville concert is a “once in a lifetime event.”

“Donny and I aren’t doing this again,” Marie Osmond said during a phone call with The Tennessean. “We won’t be back to Nashville. This will be a first and last event. Touring a show like this is huge. We have six semis and four tour buses and it’s crazy.

“We think it’s generational. It’s like pop culture meets today. You will not leave that venue without the Christmas spirit, Donny and I promise. You can buy a gift, but to me the greatest gift you can buy your family is an experience.”

The show runs the gamut of styles and will include both Donny & Marie Osmond hits as well as Christmas music.

“I have an odd voice,” she said. “It’s why I went to Broadway. I can sing many styles of music. In this show you’re going to see some country, some pop, some jazz, soprano, it’s a very diverse show and it’s a lot of fun. One reviewer said he hadn’t seen a Christmas show like this since Andy Williams. It was such a nice compliment.”

These days the Osmond siblings, who have entertained together for years including starring together in a 1970s TV variety show, are doing a stage show five days a week in Las Vegas. She is also co-hosting the “The Talk,” is about to re-launch her talk show and still works with Children’s Miracle Network, which she co-founded with John Schneider.

But Marie Osmond said one day she hopes her career will morph into something like that of her “dear friend” Betty White.

“I may just die being one of those old ladies playing those funny bit parts,” she said.

Elvis Presley died more than 35 years ago, but his legend lives on. So, too, do misconceptions about who he was and what he stood for. One of those seemingly unresolved issues is Presley’s racial attitudes.

In 2007, Peter Guralnick — a writer recognized as a Presley expert — wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times titled “How Did Elvis Get Turned Into a Racist?”

It references quotes from singer Mary J. Blige and Chuck D of Public Enemy that called Presley a racist. And it references a now-urban-legend quote often attributed to Presley either at a personal appearance in Boston or on Edward R. Murrow’s “Person to Person” television program: “The only thing Negroes can do for me is buy my records and shine my shoes.”

“That he had never appeared in Boston or on Murrow’s program did nothing to abate the rumor,” Guralnick, author of a highly acclaimed two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, “Last Train to Memphis: The Rise of Elvis Presley” and “Careless Love: The Unmaking of Elvis Presley,” wrote in the op-ed.Continue reading →

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Elvis Presley fans from around the world made their annual pilgrimage to Graceland on Thursday to pay their respects to the rock n' roll icon with a solemn candlelight vigil on the 36th anniversary of his death.

Thousands of Presley fans carried lit candles as they walked silently through the Mediation Garden at Graceland, Presley's longtime Memphis home. The garden is the location of Presley's grave and also is the spot where his mother, father and grandmother are buried.

Wreaths of flowers and pictures of Presley encircled the grave, while shadows cast by the glowing candles danced along the stone wall surrounding the garden. Soft music played in the mild night, as some in the procession bowed their heads or cried quietly.

Each year, fans of Presley's music and movies come to Memphis for Elvis Week, the weeklong celebration of his life and career. Presley died on Aug. 16, 1977, of a heart attack after battling prescription drug abuse.

The vigil is the highlight of Elvis Week, which this year featured a listening party at Stax Records for the recent release of the three-CD box set "Elvis at Stax." Performances by Presley tribute artists and a screening of the "Aloha from Hawaii" television program from January 1973 are other featured events of the weeklong reunion, which wraps up Saturday.

The first instrument in that run is an electric guitar that Delgado is building at his Delgado Guitars exhibit booth at CMA Music Festival. Well, it's almost an electric guitar. Delgado is still building it. He's accenting the body and fingerboard with tortoiseshell binding, attaching gold hardware and inlaying the fingerboard with the numbers 3, 7, 6 and 4.

(Graceland is located at 3764 Elvis Presley Boulevard in Memphis.)

The guitar will have a $15,000 price tag.

At the Delgado booth (118, at the AT&T U-verse Fan Fair X), fans can see what a stringed instrument workshop looks like, and they can view the tools of a luthier's trade. They can also view the guitar Delgado has dubbed "Memphis."

Anyone interested in owning this guitar or other Delgado instruments may stop by the booth, or email Delgado at manuel@delgadoguitars.com or Hernandez at bluesvintageguitar@att.net.

Click for photo gallery: Bobby Bare, Kenny Rogers and Cowboy Jack Clement pose for pictures following the announcement of their induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame (photo: Samuel M. Simpkins/The Tennessean)

“A lot of things happened to me when I was in the fast lane that I took for granted and didn’t take the time to savor,” said Rogers, 74, who scored his first hit with 1969’s “Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town,” and who notched 21 No. 1 country songs and more than 50 million albums sold. “If this award had come at a time like that, I might have just said, ‘I’ve got the credentials, I deserve this’ and let it go. But this comes at a time when I can really stop and enjoy what this means.”

Rogers, Bare and Clement’s credentials are varied and unassailable.

Elected by Country Music Association voters in the “modern era” category, Rogers was a gravel-voiced commercial kingpin whose popularity spread beyond country and into pop and cinema environs. His hits include “The Gambler,” “Coward Of The County,” “Daytime Friends” and “Lucille.”

Elected in the “veteran” category, the 78-year-old Bare’s eclectic and varied way of delivering songs made him an enduring favorite who championed ace songwriters Shel Silverstein, Kris Kristofferson, Tom T. Hall and Billy Joe Shaver and who kick-started country music’s “Outlaw Movement” of the 1970s with his self-produced 1973 album “Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends and Lies.”

Clement was elected as a “non-performer,” though he’s spent decades as a performing and recording artist. He produced brilliant works for Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison, Charley Pride and many more; he published songs including “She Thinks I Still Care”; he brought Pride to popular attention and desegregated country music in the process; he convinced Kristofferson to move to Nashville in the 1960s; he schooled studio proteges including Garth Fundis, Allen Reynolds and Jim Rooney; he arranged Cash’s “Ring of Fire”; he opened the first professional-grade home recording studio in Nashville; and he earned a reputation as a grinning sage of Music City.

The famous Jordanaires belt out their rendition of "Don't Be Cruel" for an enthusiastic crowd at The Nashville Tennessean's Centennial Park concert in June 1964. Members are leader Gordon Stoker, left, Hoyt Hawkins, Ray Walker and Neal Matthews. (Photo: Tennessean file/Jimmy Ellis)

Country Music Hall of Fame member Gordon Stoker, left, of theJordanaires and Hank Williams Jr. show during the Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy exhibit and party. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessean file)

His son, Alan, told The Associated Press that Stoker died Wednesday at his home in Brentwood, Tenn., after a lengthy illness. Stoker, who was born in Gleason, Tenn., got his start playing the piano on WSM radio and its signature show, the Grand Ole Opry.

He joined the Jordanaires as a piano player, but then took on a role as a vocalist singing tenor. The group was already well known for their gospel singing when Presley recruited them to perform on his recording of "Hound Dog," in 1956.

Over the past decade, several Music Row labels, studios and related businesses have relocated to other areas of Nashville or to surrounding communities, causing a noticeable change in the area’s look and feel. Click to see a slideshow on Music Row.(photo: John Partipilo / The Tennessean)

The house at the corner of 16th Avenue South and Tremont Street has served Mary Hilliard Harrington well for six years. From that post in the Music Row neighborhood, she has watched as her company, The Green Room PR, a music industry-focused public relations firm, has tripled in size and come to count Tim McGraw, Jason Aldean and Dierks Bentley as clients.

But the little house has become restrictive as The Green Room has grown. So Harrington is trading in the quaint office space next month for a contrasting view of exposed brick, high ceilings and an open floor plan.

The move means giving up the firm’s address in a neighborhood long favored by the music industry for a mailbox in the emerging SoBro neighborhood. Fifteen years ago, such a decision would have seemed to fly in the face of logic. Today, though, Harrington is on trend. Continue reading →

NEW ORLEANS — Country singer-songwriter Claude King, an original member of the Louisiana Hayride who was best known for the 1962 hit “Wolverton Mountain,” has died. He was 90.

King had just celebrated his birthday and 67th wedding anniversary to his wife, Barbara, last month. The couple’s eldest son, Duane King, said his father was found unresponsive in his bed early Thursday morning at his home in Shreveport.

King was one of the original members of the Louisiana Hayride, the Saturday-night show where Elvis Presley got his start. The show transformed country and western music from 1948 to 1960 with music genres including hillbilly, western swing, jazz, blues and gospel.

King’s hit “Wolverton Mountain” told a story of mountain man Clifton Clowers, who guarded his daughter from suitors.

“Claude was a legend in the Louisiana music industry, one of the greatest songwriters, and a wonderful friend,” said Maggie Warwick, owner of the Louisiana Hayride trademark and the production company, Louisiana Hayride Co. “Claude and Tillman Franks were on the Hayride from the very beginning.”

Warwick, who also serves as chairwoman of the Louisiana Music Commission, said King was known for his guitar-playing skills and knack for writing songs.

“He had a gift for melody and lyrics that was very definable,” Warwick said. “The range and melody and the feeling that goes with his songs, when you hear it, it’s very unique and identifiable with Claude King. He had a personal style that was all his own.”